MILWAUKEE – The lane was as deserted as Lake Michigan in winter when Toni Kukoc took a pass at the left of the key, dribbled past Othella Harrington and soared untouched for a lefty dunk.

The Knicks were back to their old lifeless selves on the road last night – sluggish on defense in the fourth quarter, zombies on the second night of a back-to-back.

Kukoc’s uncontested dunk put the Bucks ahead 82-71 with 7:14 left and essentially broke the Knicks’ spirit as the Bucks rolled 107-100 at Bradley Center.

“We didn’t defend or rebound,” Knick coach Don Chaney fumed. “We didn’t create any turnovers – with a team like that, especially a good shooting team, you have to at least force double-digit turnovers. You’re not going to outscore them. You can’t win that way. You’ve got to defend and rebound. And we didn’t.”

Latrell Sprewell can’t seem to get it right in his hometown ever since his summer vacation on Lake Michigan. For the second straight game in his hometown, he couldn’t find the basket, outplayed by Tim Thomas. Sprewell hit 3 of 14 shots for nine points after going 5 of 16 in the prior meeting Dec. 21st.

The 6-foot-10 Thomas, the apple of GM Scott Layden’s eye, finished with 14 points. Thomas towers over Sprewell by five inches.

“I don’t think it was that at all,” Sprewell said. “Tim plays hard, he’s a good defender. I’m not taking anything away from him, but I don’t think it was that at all.”

After beating them three of four games last season, the Knicks are 0-3 vs. Milwaukee – a team they are chasing in the playoff hunt – and fell to 2-9 on the second nights of back-to-backs. Playing their fourth game in five nights was a convenient excuse, but not for a team that continues to talk about making a playoff run.

“I don’t want to use the words ‘giving in,’ but if it was a playoff game, we could have found a way to stay in the game,” said Allan Houston, who scored 15 of his 31 in the fourth, mostly when the game was done.

“We have to treat these games as playoff games to get back in the hunt.”

The Bucks started off missing their first 10 shots, drawing sarcastic cheers from the Bradley Center crowd, before they finally hit their first bucket. Yet from there, they sailed, saving the best for last with a 38-point fourth quarter to break 100. The Knicks had five stops all quarter.

“We were a little flat,” Sprewell understated.

Houston was much harsher.

“We weren’t really focused, especially in the third and fourth quarter,” he said. “We didn’t have that last bit of energy. It wasn’t there, in a lot of different areas. Not just defense, a lot of second shots, backcourt cuts. We played well the first two quarters, but we didn’t have enough inside to dig deep enough.”

How bad was it? After raving about his point-guard tandem the night before, after the two had combined for 42 points in Memphis on Friday, Chaney benched both Howard Eisley and Charlie Ward midway through the fourth quarter.

In a shocking move, an attempt to shut down Sam Cassell (24 points), Chaney went with The Big Backcourt – Sprewell taking over at point guard. None of it worked.

This was a bizarre beginning as the hot-shooting Bucks started 0-for-10 and went scoreless for the game’s first 4:30. The quarter finished with the Knicks up 16-14.

Thomas scored eight of Milwaukee’s 14 points in the first. Cassell lobbed one pass over Sprewell’s head for Thomas, who dunked. Thomas also broke in with flair on a fastbreak for a soaring right-handed slam that energized the crowd.

The Bucks led 43-42 at halftime, but a 16-5 run to start the second half, capped by sweet finger-roll floater by Cassell over Harrington that made it 59-47.